Perspectives of pediatric liver and kidney transplantation in Japan

In Japan, around one hundred and thirty pediatric living donor liver transplantations (LDLT) have been done every year, while cadaveric transplants are only 11 in the past 10 years. The indication has been extended to newborn babies as small as 2.5 kg of body weight. Five-year patient-survival of pediatric LDLT in Japan is 84.4%. Seventy pediatric kidney transplantations were done in 2008, 59 from living and 11 from cadaveric donors. Ten-year graft survival is improving in recent cases, and it is 79.4% in cases done after 1992. Living donor kidney transplantation has been possible in children as small as 7 or 8 kg of body weight. With such a technical success, discussion to enhance the preemptive renal transplantation has been started in Japan.